Note to KrákÁsl Lv 7^VIII (Ragn 18)

[1-4]: It will be clear from the Readings above that the 1824b text of this stanza differs from those of 147 and Hb in the first half-stanza in that ll. 2 and 4 of 1824b appear in Hb and 147 in reverse order, and Hb and 147 have the reading bræðra in place of 1824b’s lengi (l. 2). The meaning thus emerging from ll. 1, 4 in Hb and 147 (cf. ll. 1-2 in 1824b) would be: ‘You brothers would not be unavenged …’, with bræðra used appositively with the gen. 2nd pers. pl. pron. yðvar as a gen. object of óhefnt ‘unavenged’. In 1824b, which is followed in the present edn, it is yðvar alone that is the gen. object of óhefnt. Among previous eds of the half-stanza, Rafn (FSN) and Valdimar Ásmundarson (Ragn 1891) follow 1824b. Finnur Jónsson (Hb 1892-6) naturally follows the Hb text; less naturally, perhaps, so do Vigfusson and Powell (CPB) and Örnólfur Thorsson (Ragn 1985). All other eds, as well as Finnur Jónsson in Skj B, follow the line ordering of 1824b but read bræðra in place of lengi in l. 2, thus giving the same meaning as that emerging from Hb and 147: ‘You brothers would not be unavenged …’. A justification for choosing bræðra over lengi might be that lengi ‘long’ could be thought of as contradicting eitt misseri eptir ‘one half-year afterwards’ in l. 3. This difficulty is avoided, however, if the two phrases are considered to be in apposition, with eigi ‘not’ (l. 1) applying to both.

References

1. Bibliography
2. Skj B = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1912-15b. Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning. B: Rettet tekst. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Villadsen & Christensen. Rpt. 1973. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger.
3. FSN = Rafn, Carl Christian, ed. 1829-30. Fornaldar sögur nordrlanda. 3 vols. Copenhagen: Popp.
4. CPB = Gudbrand Vigfusson [Guðbrandur Vigfússon] and F. York Powell, eds. 1883. Corpus poeticum boreale: The Poetry of the Old Northern Tongue from the Earliest Times to the Thirteenth Century. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon. Rpt. 1965, New York: Russell & Russell.
5. Hb 1892-6 = Finnur Jónsson, ed. 1892-6. Hauksbók udgiven efter de Arnamagnæanske håndskrifter no. 371, 544 og 675, 4° samt forskellige papirshåndskrifter. Copenhagen: Det kongelige nordiske oldskrift-selskab.
6. Ragn 1985 = Örnólfur Thorsson 1985, 101-53.
7. Ragn 1891 = 2nd edn (pp. 175-224) of Ragn as ed. in Valdimar Ásmundarson 1885-9, I.